potpourri of thoughts

May 21, 2005

Koreans Report Major Stem Cell Breakthrough

South Korean researchers are reporting today that they have developed a highly efficient recipe for producing human embryos through cloning, and then extracting their stem cells.

Writing in the journal Science, the researchers, led by Dr. Woo Suk Hwang and Dr. Shin Yong Moon of Seoul National University, said they used their method to produce 11 human stem cell lines that were genetic matches of patients who ranged in age from 2 to 56.

The method, called therapeutic cloning, is one of the great hopes of the stem cell field. It produces stem cells, universal cells that are extracted from embryos, killing the embryos in the process, and that, in theory, can be directed to grow into any of the body's cell types.
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